Eddie Cockrell

A natural for kidfests, pic is a fine example of old-fashioned story-telling and also will dance wherever detailed character development and leisurely-paced drama are appreciated.

Timely and entertaining concert documentary.

Confronts an incendiary topic head-on with grace, style, compassion and exquisitely practical wit.

Unaffectedly hip and affably manic, Down & Out With the Dolls picks up where "Singles" left off.

Fans of the Grammy-winning musician will revel in the proximity to their idol, though second pic from talented helmer Thomas Riedelsheimer plays a tad long to those unfamiliar with his, or her, work.

An Argentine writer dying of AIDS searches for a medical cure and some human warmth in the hospitals and S&M clubs of Buenos Aires in dignified, thoughtful drama A Year Without Love.

The moral quandary of Nazi complicity is revisited in taut drama The Counterfeiters, which tells the true story of a disparate group of imprisoned artists, financiers and swindlers secretly assembled in a concentration camp to forge millions of pound and dollar notes to support the German war effort.

An uncommonly resonant sports drama in which a talented yet troubled gymnast comes to terms with a turbulent past.

Noteworthy for its detail and evenhandedness.

Predictable yet charming, The Grand Role is a crowd-pleasing dramatic comedy about love, friendship, role-playing and Jewish pride.

A dignified and wistful look at the unusual life, difficult career and lasting influence of singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt.

The most nonconfrontational and thus accessible title in the Dogma lot to date, and will speak the international language of proletariat love to arthouse auds who go for such fare.

Prolific helmer Kari Skogland draws a fiery performance from vet Burstyn and a beguiling one from Christine Horne as the young Hagar. Yet the book's sheer "Giant"-like scope necessitates generational cross-cutting that's both rushed and cluttered; pic would have have been better served as a more leisurely miniseries.

A taut police procedural that craftily blends ripped-from-the-headlines genetic issues with foreboding Icelandic stoicism, Jar City reps a supremely confident stride into mass-appeal genre fare for Icelandic hyphenate Baltasar Kormakur.

An entertaining profile of the self-avowed participatory journalist and his tumultuous life and times.

The big, burly Samoan Wedding is a shrewdly written, impeccably timed and audaciously played romantic comedy.

This triumph of historical verisimilitude in the service of solid storytelling requires no detailed knowledge of the period to be appreciated as the moving story of a son's unconditional love for his mother.

Though it may feel undernourished to the faithful, Winnipeg is an easily digestible meal, for the uninitiated and fans alike.

The film is an energetic, candy-colored romp through genre tropes that manages to take its subject matter seriously while poking fun at itself at the same time.

The aural landscape here is key, as Wilson’s strategy is to create a visual theater of the mind in which the majority of the action is heard and not seen.

The cast is clearly what sells the experience, but it all goes down easy through the combined efforts of Ward’s perceptive direction, the nuanced editing of vet Nick Meyers, and Bonnie Elliott’s warm, crystalline camerawork. Melinda Doring’s meticulous, crowded-but-not-cluttered production design settles everyone right in.

A quasi-docu about the formative years of the African National Congress that relies heavily on handsomely-mounted dramatic recreations to tell its story.

TV scribe Kundo Koyama's first bigscreen script peppers the proceedings with rich character detail and near-screwball interludes that shouldn't fit but somehow do.

Anchored by another marvelously quirky yet deadly serious performance from John Malkovich, and likely to be relished by the fan base of J.M. Coetzee's Booker Prize-winning novel, this is a strong, perceptive, old-school arthouse picture.

Picture reflects the no-nonsense storytelling skills of prolific helmer Michael Apted, whose career-long mix of feature and documentary work holds him in good stead once more.

Sublimely pointed in its idealistic simplicity yet willfully scruffy in presentation -- much like the enduring Young's best music.

Anchored by a fearless, commanding lead perf by newcomer Jonas Ball as deranged assassin Mark David Chapman, The Killing of John Lennon is a harrowing, impressionistic, widescreen tour-de-force that unfolds with the propulsive urgency of a scrapbook thrown into a howling wind.

A successful novelist whose films bear the expansive plotting and telling character detail of the page, Doerrie never seems in any particular hurry to tell her tales, preferring the journey to the destination.